The 6th century saint Colmcille is also known as St Columba. The poem is available as a "Poems on the Underground" poster and you can hear Heaney read it here. Another translator's version - and the original Irish - are on the Leabhar Mor site.

Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was a prolific translator as well as poet, working from Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Scots as well as Irish. Beowulf is probably his best-known translation, wonderful to listen to.

"Heaney has translated other Gaelic works, of course, like Buile Shuibhne, 'the madness of Sweeney', and like Yeats before him, I suppose it represents an effort on their part, as primarily anglophone Irish poets, to weave together a harmonious melody and rhythm of cultural and linguistic identity.... For Heaney, it is through writing that this can be achieved, furious penwork to cramp his hand. It's no surprise then that 'digging' is one of his earliest metaphors for writing (spade-work versus penwork) with the connection to the land that it evokes, and that its echo resounds through his work even today. It's where all the answers are, not just to Heaney's poetry, but to understanding Ireland." (via)

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Tuesday is Drawing Day - why not join in, wherever you are, any or every Tuesday? Find somewhere that has interesting things - it needn't be a museum, it could be your own home! - and just draw, using whatever media you want. Ask some friends to join you, then have a nice lunch.

The London group has grown to the point where it's getting difficult to find a cafe table large enough, and reluctantly I must say that it is no longer open to new members.

6 March - Natural History Museum (pm; meet in cafe behind/under the main stairs at 3.30)